The long time use of landfills, dumps, ponds and other bodies of water to dispose of waste has resulted in creation of many sites containing water, soil or sediment polluted with a mixture of organic and inorganic compounds, some of which are toxic. Many of these sites are not charted or mapped. When the site containing buried waste is redeveloped, the contaminated soil is uncovered and the waste can seep into the overlying buildings and endanger the inhabitants. There is a major effort to remediate and clean all contaminated sites throughout the world and especially in the United States of America. Many times contamination is uncovered while property is being sold or during construction. It is necessary to identify the extent and type of toxic compounds present in the zone and in order to assess the type of remediation needed and to remediate the soil as soon as possible so that the sale can close or construction can proceed.
Mass spectrometry (MS) or gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is one of the most sensitive and accurate means of organic analysis. It is widely used for the analysis of the organic content of environmental samples. However, it is not applicable to the detection and quantification of metals or metal ions in these samples because of the problem of extracting metals from the samples and presenting them to the mass spectrometer in vapor form.
In order to determine the metal content of an environmental sample, metals were extracted from the sample by elaborate methods and the extracted samples were analyzed by a separate analytical method using a separate instrument.
Acquisition of data would be significantly expedited if environmental samples could be analyzed on site. A field portable GC-MS system has been developed for this purpose. However, as discussed above, the GC-MS instrument can only analyze organic contaminants. If the environmental samples contain toxic metals or are suspected to contain these metals, the sample must be returned to the laboratory for elaborate extraction and analysis or a separate instrument had to be brought to the field and the elaborate inorganic extraction practiced on-site.
It would be much more convenient, and cost effective if both metals and organic compounds could be analyzed on site or at the lab in the same, GC-MS system.